


Egg Hunt

by magneticdice



Series: Easter [3]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1498561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magneticdice/pseuds/magneticdice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Easter Sunday at the Gallagher house. Mickey brings his son over for the Easter egg hunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Egg Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> i know it's corny and stupid and OOC but this is what i wrote and i'm sorry if you don't like it... :-/

** Egg Hunt **

“So, uh… How does this work, exactly?”

It was Easter Sunday at the Gallagher house. Mickey had a ratty wicker basket in one hand and his son’s tiny hand in the other.

“ Fi‒I mean,  _ the Easter Bunny _ ,” Debbie amended, looking guiltily at Yevgeny, “came to the house last night and hid his eggs all over the house for us to find.”

“The eggs we dyed?” Mickey wondered, referring to the three dozen hard-boiled eggs he’d helped Ian and Debbie color the previous night.

“No, different ones. Neon-colored plastic ones, filled with jelly beans and little pieces of chocolate,” Fiona explained. “This used to be Carl’s favorite part of Easter.”

“ Yeah, when I was like  _ five _ ,” the teenager called from his spot sprawled across the living room couch.

“More like twelve,” Fiona whispered to Mickey as she handed Liam his own basket.

Ian had been quiet since Mickey arrived with his son. He watched the redhead carefully for any clues about what he was thinking. Even though Ian had told him it was cool to bring Yevgeny along, Mickey could tell that Ian wasn’t happy about his presence there… hence the silent treatment.

“When do we start?” Mickey wondered.

Fiona looked at her watched and was about to answer when the front door opened with a loud bang. Kev and Veronica’s two little girls, Amy and Gemma, burst through in matching pink dresses, waving their little white baskets in the air, hair bobbing up and down in half-braided pigtails. Their parents weren’t far behind.

“Happy Easter!” the girls shouted in unison. Mickey saw them at the Alibi so often that he could easily tell them apart. Gemma was the troublemaker‒the one currently hitting her sister with her basket.

Fiona laughed as the girls ran around her in the living room. She gave a hug to Veronica when the other woman walking in. “They wouldn’t sit still again?” Fiona asked her, giving an understanding smile to her best friend.

Veronica grimaced, setting down the bags she was holding. “Girl, do  _ not _ even get me started. Do you see their hair? And  _ that  _ took half an hour,” she muttered, shaking her head in dismay.

Kev handed Fiona what looked like a green bean casserole and collapsed into the armchair.

“I thought you couldn’t wait to have a beer?” Veronica asked him, arms akimbo.

“Too far…” the barman mumbled, throwing his head back to lean on the cushion.

Ian laughed and went to the kitchen, presumably to get Kev the  beer, while Fiona put the casserole dish onto the dining room. Ian returned not much later with two cold bottles beer. He gave one to Kev, who accepted it gratefully, but kept the other for himself, blatantly avoiding Mickey’s stare.

Yevgeny, excited by the commotion and seeing the familiar faces of the twins, tried to pull away from Mickey and join in on the fun.

“No,” Mickey reprimanded, tightening his grip on his son’s little hand. “Wait until the hunt starts.”

“Oh, hey Mickey,” Kev said then, apparently just noticing Mickey for the first time. “You got stuck with kid duty this weekend or something?” his partner asked him, nodding towards Mickey’s son.

Mickey scowled at Kev but kept silent.

“Oh, you can let him go, Mickey,” Fiona said from the dining room. “It’s not like he can get into much trouble here. The whole place is kid-proofed from the last time the social worker was here.” She flashed him a tentative smile until Mickey reluctantly let go of his son’s hand.

“Liam! Girls! You too, Yevgeny!” Debbie called. “Are you ready to start the Easter Egg Hunt?”

The four kids nodded eagerly and gathered around the younger redhead, baskets at the ready.

“Whoever finds the most eggs wins! You can go look upstairs but the basement is off limits., okay?” She waited for them all to nod again. “Ready? Set? Go!”

The kids scurried around, Liam heading for the closet, the twins to the kitchen, and Yevgeny to the crawlspace under the stairs.

Mickey was unsure of what to do now that he was free of his kid. He studied Ian again and watched as his boyfriend stared in the direction his son had vanished to. He decided to go get himself a beer since Ian sure as hell wasn’t going to.

When he returned to the living room, he shoved Carl’s feet off he couch and relaxed in the space they had previously occupied, watching the kids running this way and that, greedily putting eggs into their baskets. He looked over his shoulder and saw his son’s shoes showing from underneath the curtain below the staircase.

Mickey frowned, wondering for the hundredth time how his son ended up being such a pussy. “Come on, kid,” he called. “You’re not gonna win by hiding under the stairs!” Yevgeny slowly came out but ran up the stairs before anyone could talk to him.

The conversation between the adults resumed, but Mickey’s thoughts were on his boyfriend. Back when his son was first born, Ian had covertly given Mandy a bunch of Liam’s old clothes for her to give to the baby. (Mandy had told Mickey about it even though though it was supposed to be a secret, and Mickey had actually been happy, thinking for a fleeting second that the person who mattered to him the most was okay with him having a son now.) Things had gone downhill after Ian’s first manic episode, then the diagnosis, the self medicating, and most of all, Svetlana’s reluctance to accept Ian into the family. Mickey had a feeling she talked shit about his boyfriend when he wasn’t around because that was the only explanation for his son being so afraid of Ian.

Twenty minutes later, Debbie called the kids back to count up their eggs, but Yevgeny was no where to be found.

“Maybe he’s playing hide and seek?” Carl suggested.

Fiona frowned, looking around the first floor. “There aren’t that many places to hide. Did anyone see him come back downstairs?”

They shook their heads.

“He must still be upstairs then,” Fiona reasoned.

“Unless he came down through the kitchen stairs,” Debbie added as an alternative.

“Great…” Mickey signed, getting up to go look for his boy. He climbed the steps two at a time, then decided to start in the boys’ bedroom. It was empty. He checked Debbie’s next, then Lip’s, and finally Fiona’s. There was no sign of his son.

“Did you check the bathroom?” Ian asked. Mickey spun around, startled. He hadn’t heard his boyfriend come up the stairs.

“What the fuck would he be doing in the bathroom?” Mickey asked, eyebrows rising to show what a ridiculous suggestion he thought it was.

“I used to hid in the bathtub when Frank and Monica would fight,” Ian said softly. “I felt safe there.”

Mickey felt that familiar weight on his chest that he would feel whenever he thought about his boyfriend in any kind of distress or pain, made even worse when there was nothing he could do to  _ fix _ him or help him. This was one of those moments.

“There’s no reason for him to be scared,” Mickey reasoned. “Gemma and Amy are here and he loves playing with them at the Alibi.”

“This is a new place for him. He might just need to get used to it…”

Mickey went to the bathroom and opened the door dubiously. He slowly pushed the curtain back. Just as Ian had predicted, Yevgeny was there, sitting in the bathtub, with one single Easter egg in his basket.

“Come on, let’s go downstairs,” Mickey said to him, reaching a hand out to help his son up. The toddler shook his head emphatically. Mickey tried to pick him up but Yevgeny held onto the sides of the tub so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

He was about to reach down and forcibly yank his son out when Ian put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“There’s no rush,” the redhead said, taking a seat on the edge of the tub. “Sit,” he ordered Mickey, pointing at the toilet.

“Hey, kiddo. You found an egg!” he said to Yevgeny in an exaggerated, upbeat voice. “Did you open it yet?”

Yevgeny looked from his dad to the egg in his basket then back to Ian, and shook his head.

“You didn’t open it?” The little boy shook his head again. “Then how are you gonna know if you got chocolate or jelly beans?” Ian asked him.

Yevgeny’s eyes lit up with a new excitement‒chocolate was a word he definitely knew. He obviously hadn’t understood that there was something  _ inside  _ the eggs, but now he grabbed the egg in his both hands and began to squeeze it. When nothing happened, Yevgeny shook the egg vigorously, holding it close to his ear to hear the sounds of its contents as they rattled around inside. Ian laughed as the boy screwed his eyes shut in concentration.

“Egg!” Yevgeny said happily, holding the egg out to Ian, who nodded in agreement. He reached out and took the offered egg.

“Yeah, buddy. It’s an egg. Should we open it?”

Yevgeny nodded.

Ian showed him how to open the egg and Mickey saw the colorful jelly beans inside once the egg was opened. “The cherry ones are my favorite,” Ian continued, pointing to a dark red piece. “Can I have this one?”

Yevgeny nodded, picked up the jelly bean with his tiny fingers, and placed it into Ian’s opened palm.

“How ‘bout one for your dad?”

Yevgeny picked out another jelly bean and held it out for Mickey.

The brunette leaned forward and let his son put the candy into his hand as well.

“Which flavor’d you get?” Ian asked Mickey.

“What, you’re talkin’ to me now?” Mickey asked. Ian shrugged, and he decided not to push it. It didn’t matter to him how long it took Ian to become comfortable with Yevgeny, as long as things were moving in the right direction. Looking into his palm, he saw the small, orange-colored jelly bean. “Orange,” he said, guessing at the flavor.

Yevgeny nodded emphatically. “Daddy loves orange boy,” he said, surprising both Mickey and Ian. “Orange,” he repeated, pointing at the jelly bean. Mickey felt his cheeks getting warm and could see the blush on Ian’s face as well.

Ian barked out a laugh then, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Yeah, daddy  _ does _ love orange boy,” he agreed, grin stretching from ear to ear.

They waited until Yevgeny had eaten every piece of candy in the egg. “Come on, let’s go downstairs and eat some yummy food, okay? Then I’ll get Fiona to give you some more candy,” Ian promised.

“ _ Candy! _ ”  Yevgeny repeated, standing up and carefully climbing over the edge of the tub, fears apparently forgotten for the time being.

Mickey was grateful to Ian for putting in the extra effort with his son and somehow convincing him to get out of the bathtub. He stood up from his seat on the toilet, following the boy out of the bathroom and down the stairs. Just before reaching the bottom, he felt Ian’s hand on his shoulder once again.

“Sorry about earlier…” he whispered.

Mickey turned to look at Ian. The redhead was no longer smiling, but he didn’t look as sullen as he had earlier.

“I know it’s weird, man, but he’s my son…” Mickey said.

Ian nodded. “I know.”

Mickey nodded too. “Thanks for helping him.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Mickey gave Ian a small, tight-lipped smile and continued down the stairs to the living room, to join the others around the dining room table. The food was passed around and the meal was delicious.

At one point, Ian leaned in close to Mickey. “You know, orange boy loves daddy too,” he said so that Mickey was the only one to hear.

He knew. Of course he knew… but hearing Ian  _ say  _ it meant everything, each and every time.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Easter!


End file.
